Doorways
by daringu
Summary: Three drabbles, manga-based, on the subject of doorways - mental (for Ilpalazzo and Excel) and physical (for Kabapu and the ronin).


"Doorways"  
  
By A.Hahn  
  
Original draft 3/14/04  
  
Implied I/E - implied Secret - (most likely AU)  
  
Originally these two were meant to be separate drabbles, but soon enough I noticed that the theme of "doorways" linked them - of the "doorways that will remain shut" that Ilpala sees in the wall in v.4 and the physical doorway that Misaki enters. The third one is just for fun :)  
  
I love Misaki and Momochi in the manga and their interaction - I would love for the two of them to discover the Secret together in the future. Kabapu has the potential to be very creepy and very humorous at the same time, as I tried to portray here. Yeah, I switched the power structure in the past I/E bit, cos I wanna. :) I made some odd assumptions here. Take them how you want.  
  
I'm assuming these first two drabbles will be disproven and become AU at some point in the future in the manga, but kanpai~~ (cheers) anyway.  
  
- 1  
  
He was split, one half of himself thrown like a shadow below the big chair, where he watched the Ilpalazzo above speak.  
  
"Excel, please stay behind a moment."  
  
Mid-bow, she froze while Hyatt tiptoed out of the room, dragging Menchi along.  
  
The self below the throne tried to reach upward get the other self's attention by a quick snatch of the robe. Talking to Excel about *that* subject was a dangerous course of action.   
  
Her cheeks developed a deep flush. The Ilpalazzo above spoke quickly to avoid continuing her train of thought.  
  
"When you said 'It's as if fond memories spring back from...', what did you mean?"  
  
One second passed. Her face remained red. Two seconds. The half below the throne whispered fast, harsh. Three seconds. The half in the chair fingered the rope as it lowered itself from the ceiling.  
  
Her head, bowed before, snapped upward. Her eyes focused, her shoulders raised into a much less subservient posture. She smiled. It reminded him of-*no, don't think of it!* the half below the throne urged.   
  
Hand outstretched, fingers widespread, she stepped towards him.  
  
"Give me your hand and I'll show you..." she murmured.  
  
Dizzy, jackhammers pounding against his forehead, he slowly stretched out his hand toward her.  
  
She fumbled sounds with her lips, unrecognizable sounds rolling off her tongue. Their fingers were five seconds apart, no, now three, the half below the throne watched, now two seconds away, she still fumbled for whatever it was she wanted to say-  
  
Half his mind mumbled in anguish and the other nodded and reintegrated as his hand snaked around her head and over her mouth; his other hand shoved her hand to her hip.  
  
"Don't you ever, ever say my real name," he whispered in her ear, in a tone of voice he didn't remember ever having. He noticed shadows moving around the corners of the great hall.  
  
She slumped forward, and part of him was relieved to see the flush creep back into her cheeks. Whatever had possessed both of them was gone; forced back into the cobwebbed corners of her crowded mind, and locked away in his.  
  
His glasses had fallen down on his nose; he pushed them up with the middle finger of his right hand, letting go of her hand in the process. Her hand briefly reached upward, as if to grasp his again, but then fell inert to her side. Abruptly he pulled his hand away from her mouth and in the same moment she whirled around to face him, her face clouded with want and fear and love of him all at the same time.  
  
"Lord Ilpalazzo, why?"   
  
Both halves remembered a promise made to that face.  
  
He smiled, and picked at a crease in his black pants.  
  
"There are some doorways that need to remain closed. Now go, and help Hyatt with the mission."  
  
"Yes, sir!" she saluted, and sauntered into the maze of sewers, pumping her fists.  
  
The entire course of events erased themselves from her mind by the time she had hit the second fork in the path.  
  
For she had doorways she wanted to keep shut too.  
  
- 2  
  
"You know there's more to this department than what appears immediately, yes?" whispered Momochi to Misaki as they passed one another in the hallway of one of Fukuoka's tallest skyscrapers, home to many government facilities, one of them the Department of City Security.  
  
Misaki halted her well-metered step; her eyes widened the slightest percentage of an inch.  
  
The secretary smiled her half-smile, and used the one hand free of her usual assortment of papers to tug down her pin-striped suit.  
  
"Be warned that I do not know everything either, and sometimes I wish not to know. This place has undesirable secrets crawling out of its walls."  
  
A pause. Misaki eyed Momochi.  
  
"Still, it is not fair for us to be fighting for something we do not understand," Misaki said slowly.  
  
"Or, rather, for you to be fighing for something you do not understand?"   
  
Momochi smiled again, the dimple below her eye raising the slightest percentage of an inch.  
  
"We understand each other much too well," Misaki said.  
  
A few hours later, during her break, she found herself in a room with drab white paint and filled bookshelves. She slipped the key Momochi handed her in her pocket and surveyed the new territory: this room was no different than any other room in the government complex.  
  
She paced, wondered if Momochi could have been wrong, paused in front of a bookshelf.  
  
The books had no titles on the spines. Nor on the covers.  
  
She slipped one off the shelf, let the book fall open to a random page. There was a picture with scribbled lines of text under it and a date above it. A diary. And she recognized the handwriting of the date because only one person she knew insisted upon sending handwritten, personal memos -  
  
Kabapu. He was the photographer of the picture below: no one else had the irregularly shaped hair and mustache whose shadow fell on the wall behind the young couple. The blonde-haired girl had her head on the green-haired boy's shoulders; their black school uniforms betrayed their young age. The half-military style of the uniforms only could possibly come from the prestigious Juuban private school that she herself attended and of that, in the last ten years.  
  
"These are my first Daitenjin," read the scrawl below the picture.  
  
The book slipped in her hands. First Daitenjin?  
  
"He has been most helpful in the technical design of the suits, and she in the aesthetic. They know the worth of helping this grand city, and will soon be the defenders of it."  
  
"Snooping where you don't belong, Misaki? I like that in a woman."  
  
She turned and there he was, twirling his dark green mustache with his right pinkie.  
  
"How were you able to get in here?"  
  
"The key was in the lock," she lied, flipping a bit of hair from her ponytail behind her shoulder.  
  
He stepped closer.  
  
"This isn't a key I would leave in the lock, unless-damn that Shoiji," he muttered.  
  
"The Doctor distracted you again, Sir?"   
  
"Yes, with Ropponmatsu 2."  
  
"Ahh." The men always became stupid whenever the women-shaped robots came around.  
  
"Point is," he connected with her eyes and she gazed back, not faltering, "-there are many items in here unsuitable for anyone but me to see."  
  
"Then why leave them so easily accessable? A simple key suffices to open the door," said Misaki, her practical nature asserting itself again.  
  
He twirled his mustache more. "You're right. But you-" and here Momochi stepped from out of the shadows and pressed a little injection into Misaki's arm, "-you must not remember anything you have seen."  
  
As Momochi dragged Misaki into the hallway, he looked once more at the slightly faded picture of the couple and returned the book to the shelf.  
  
"Sometimes one does not think of the more simple doorways for the complicated ones," he murmured, and turned the light off as he strode out the room.  
  
- 3  
  
"For the love of God, Iwata, shut the door!" snarled Watanabe, threatening the guilty party with a spatula. "It's February, implying freezing!"  
  
"Aww, is Mr. Apron Man cold?" snickered Iwata.  
  
"If you don't shut it YOU DON'T GET DINNER FROM THIS MR. APRON MAN!" yelled Watanabe, and smacked Iwata on the head repeatedly with his Instrument of Doom and Cooking.  
  
'Ahh, I'm surrounded by idiots,' said Sumiyoshi, and shut the door. 'They get so caught up in their fighting that they forget the doorway they fought for in the first place.' 


End file.
